Mr. Ken Martin
Sermon Transcript
June 15, 2002
Overcoming Anxiety
This afternoon what I would like to do is to address a topic that certainly falls into a category of the overcoming that you and I, as men and women of God, are required to do. The scripture makes it very plain that we are to be overcomers and there is much we must overcome. And we overcome through our faith and our confidence in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is the head of the Church of God and who has been so gracious to work on our behalf as our high priest, intercessor and soon coming King.
The scripture tells us in Revelation 2 and verse 26 as well as Rev. 3, verse 21 that to those who overcome — like I say, there are many things to overcome in this physical life as human beings that we have to deal with. One of the areas that I would like to address in this overcoming concept has to do with the problem of what I call anxiety. And so, we are going to talk about overcoming anxiety. And the reason why we need to look at this is because it is impacting on this world as never before. And many people do not realize how this is building and how it is going to rise to a very powerful crescendo at the end of man’s day and age on this earth in which the scripture tells us anxiety will literally be running wild and that human beings will be fearful: watching and wondering; their hearts failing them, it says; wondering what’s coming next. They are so anxiety prone out of fear of what’s coming next because they don’t have a grasp of what is really happening.
Well, you and I have been given insight by the grace of God to understand certain things that are going to happen on an overall plan and purpose of God that we need to be watching and praying about. As we watch, as we pray, God gives us insight to see and analyze these things and to give us a working ability to deal with these things because God is a God of peace — His Son is called the Prince of Peace — and God did not intend in any way, shape or form for His sons and daughters to be all strung out like this world is going to get strung out. He wants us to be understanding the peace of mind that passes all understanding in Christ Jesus. And we are going to see how He addresses this a little bit later. But everyone is familiar with anxiety today because there are so many people that are caught up in the trap of anxiety.
Now what is anxiety? Well, according to Webster’s definition it is defined as this: painful or apprehensive uneasiness of the mind. Painful or apprehensive uneasiness of the mind. In other words, not sure about what’s going on, fearful and worrying about what might happen in the process of circumstances in time. Everyone, as I say, is familiar with anxiety because today it has reached epidemic proportions in society and many people have had to be medicated on various aspects of anxiety or panic attacks. And so they go to their doctors trying to find a resolution to this and in some case that is exactly what must be done. They do need professional help because if this thing is running wild it needs to be dealt with professional means. But there is also something else that we need to look at that the world does not teach and that is God’s solution — God’s resolution for overcoming anxiety because the world today is getting more fearful and apprehensive.
Now how do I know? Well, because we are now faced with new threats that we have never been faced with before. Every day now, we are constantly reminded of the War on Terrorism. And what is terrorism? What is terrorism designed to do? It is designed to create anxiety in the masses where people become fearful, apprehensive, fretful, not knowing what’s coming next because if I go over here where there’s a large group of people, maybe there’s a terrorist in there who is going to blow everything up. And then again, if I go over here in this other area — maybe something else, maybe we’ve got a suicide bomber who just doesn’t like the way some things are going and he blows this up. In other words, the sum of all fears: like the movie that is being played right now about the fear and the apprehension and the anxiety that somebody might nuke a city like Baltimore, MD — and that’s what that movie’s theme is all about. You go there for that purpose and what do you discern in that movie? Well, we know that in that movie we are going to watch about radical guys running around who are threatening to blow up a city. And apparently the theme of that movie is that some kind of neo-fascist group gets ahold of a bomb on the black market and there is a lot of action stuff going on. But isn’t that ironic that entertainment now, the entertainment is: go to the movie to watch a city get blown up. And then you go home at night traumatized and shocked by what you have seen because you hope and pray to God that never happens in the United States of America. But this is what they keep telling us is going to happen.
So how do you maintain tranquillity, peace of mind when every day you watch the news and this is what you hear on a constant drumming into your mind? Watch, we’ve got terrorist attacks, we’re on a yellow alert today — nope, it’s green, we’re all right; it wasn’t as dangerous as we thought it was. Well what was it we were looking for? We don’t know, but we know we’ve got to be looking. You see what I’m saying? It creates an uncertainty. And this is part and parcel of why we need to be careful because anxiety produces something that with its cousin — I call its cousin worry — anxiety produces worry. And when people start to worry, they need to remember old Bobby McFarlin’s song years ago — some of you remember this Jamaican singer with this Jamaican rhythm that he had — he says, "Don’t worry, don’t worry". That was the key part of that song. "Don’t worry". You know, he would whistle this song: Da da da da da da da da, don’t worry..." And he would keep hitting that point. Well that was because the people were living a more relaxed lifestyle. We used to live a more relaxed lifestyle in the United States years ago. Sometimes people look back and they say, "Oh, I wish for the old days when we could just sit on the porch and talk and it was more relaxing." Well look how things have sped up! Look how now everything is faster, faster, more decision to have to be made. And as you make these decisions what happens? You’re always under pressure: pressure of the watch, the clock, time, deadlines, gotta do this, gotta do that. And if you just sit down and relax, you feel guilty, guilty because you think you should be doing something. Well, that’s what you should be doing at that moment, just relaxing. But we don’t know how to relax anymore because we are just constantly being pushed, pushed, pushed. And the Bible tells who behind the scenes is the invisible one doing this pushing with his minions. We know that to be the god of this world, Satan the devil.
Well the thing that the Bible is trying to convey to us, and please remember the solution that God offers to overcoming anxiety can only be accessed in the context of faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God so the solution God gives here from His Word has to be understood in the context of your faith and confidence in what God has said to bring about resolution in the area if you are suffering from some form of anxiety. And I’m here to tell you: all of us suffer from anxiety from time to time. You can’t hardly help it. If you are a person and if you have been working for thirty some years like some people have done and we have seen this on the evening news and what have they done? They set aside money in retirement funds for years. They are now going to sleep at night with anxiety pangs, with apprehension in their thought process. Why? Suddenly they have seen all their hard work evaporate. It’s gone. They see these scandalizing CEO’s walking away with big bucks because they sold their stock in time, but they let the little guy get hit. So the little guy gets caught in the crossfire in all of this. What God is basically showing us here is that in the world, you’re going to have tribulation. You’re going to have anxieties.
In Me, He says, you will have peace (John 16:33). My peace that I give you is not like the world gives you peace because they will leave you in pieces, they will leave you a literal wreck when it’s all said and done if you try to look to the world for resolution to the problem of anxiety. But what God offers is a real solution because He knows that anxiety and worry are counter-productive to the mind of a man and a woman. It's counter-productive. It doesn’t get you anywhere. It could be likened unto the following: anxiety and worry are like a rocking chair — it will give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere. You can rock and rock and rock and rock, but you’re not going anywhere. Or it has also been said that anxiety and worry will give you a fast get-away on a wooden horse because it’s not going anywhere. It’s counter-productive.
You know, isn’t it interesting, we don’t find anywhere where Jesus made the statement to His disciples for all of us to learn, ‘Thou shalt worry. Thou shalt frustrate thyself to death.’ It’s not there. He tells us, Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me (John 14:1). He says that is the confidence that Jesus always generated because He had this confidence from His Father. And that is shared with us through the power of God’s spirit, now that Christ is our High Priest at the right hand of the Father who administers that spirit of God to the saints of God so that we can have the ‘peace of mind that passes all understanding’ (Phil. 4:7) in Christ Jesus as He lives His life in us again. But because of that human factor — because we all have it — it doesn’t mean that this is just suddenly going to wash away all anxieties, fears, doubts and worries. Remember, something is being perfected in all of us. What is it? The love of God. And as we are going to see, the love of God casts out all fear because fear has torment.
The world is being tormented right now by a radical group of Islamics that are trying to torment the Israeli Jews, now to torment the United States and Britain and Europe. This is the attitude that now is flaring up in this radical form of Islam that we hear about on the news. It’s not all Islamics. There are a lot of them — the true concept of Islam that is a lot different from this radicalism that we see happening today. But it’s going to be very difficult for people to sort it out. And it’s going to get much more difficult because we are told in 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 1 that
2 Tim. 3:1 Know this, that in the last days perilous times will come.
Those perilous times are stress filled times. They are difficult times to live in because they produce anxieties and threats to you on a day to day basis.
So what should the Christian approach be to the subject of anxiety and worry? How should we deal with it since our commission in the scripture is to be an overcomer and this is something we’ve got to overcome and I can’t find anywhere in the Bible where it says, run to your doctor and load up on Valium. It’s not there. But like I say, there are people today that, not knowing what God offers, they have to use some kind of a medication because things are just getting out of hand. And so that’s why they need professional people to watch over that because, again, you can take over-medication and it can create real problems in the lives of people. You have to really watch carefully and count the cost, like the Bible says, as to what you should do in some of these matters.
Now let’s understand the problem of anxiety. What is anxiety? We gave you Webster’s definition. Anxiety is a form of distress and it tells us in Luke 21 down in that whole chapter that as prophesies begin to unfurl it says there will be distress among nations — this apprehension — you know, who’s going to attack? Who’s going to throw the first nuclear bomb? What’s going to happen here? The nations are antsy. They don’t know what’s coming down. And boy, the first nation that throws a couple of those nuclear bombs around — there’s going to be a hue and cry for something massive. ‘We’ve got to do something.’ And there may then well be somebody who is going to step out of the bushes as we say and another one side by side and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got the solution.’ It’s called the beast and the false prophet that the Bible talks about and we are told to be watching for things of that nature.
Anxiety is distress about future uncertainties. For example, why do all the people right now pull their money out of the stock market and have it in (from what we understand from listening to the reports) their monies are in (if they’ve got any to put in) their monies basically are in money market funds, just sitting on the side. They’re hardly making any money, but they’re afraid to stick it in the stock market. Why? They’ll just see that stock go straight down and they’ll lose everything. So they’d rather make a few dimes and dollars and hold it into something where they have liquidity and they can at least get the money they presently have. So they are apprehensive. What’s the future of the stock market? You know, is it going to go down? Are we going to have a ’29 crash all over again? Some people are out there writing books saying it’s coming that way. Others write books and say, no, it isn’t. It’s going to go again real high and everybody is going to get rich. So, I mean, you’re torn this way and you’re torn that way — you don’t know which way to go. One time they tell you: this report says that this is good for you to do. The next report comes out: that’s bad for you to do. After a while, people get turned off and what is happening? Well, guess what? The present situation is such that recently I heard a report given dealing with the news channels — now this was CNN, FOX News, and ABC News — and the age bracket for those people who watch CNN basically is around fifty-seven. That’s the average mean age for that group. FOX News, sixty-one. ABC, fifty-eight. Where are the young people? Answer: MTV, VH1, and anything else but the news. They don’t want to hear anything. They are totally blind-sided as to what’s going on in the news. Ask the average young person, ‘What did you hear on FOX News tonight?’ Huh? They will look at you and say, ‘I don’t watch FOX News.’ That’s not what they want to see. They want to see sitcoms. They want to see Friends. They want to see all the different ones that are the high ranking ones that are targeted for the young age mind. News doesn’t target the young mind — it’s targeted for the older, more mature mind that is interested in the senior or adult stage of life. Guess what? This group of individuals, though, when they get older, you know where they are going to turn? They are going to watch CNN News. They’re going to watch FOX News. Why? Because suddenly they are going to realize sitcoms don’t have the answer to what they are now facing. They are suddenly going to grow up and they are suddenly going to start wondering what’s going on in the world they are living in. Why does everybody hate us? They are going to want to know answers. But right now, they don’t want to know answers. They want to go party. They want to have fun. And you can see them going. Every time they get out on college break, they head down for Ft. Lauderdale, they go to Panama City Beach, the go to Cozumel, they go down there to Cancun, and what do they want to do? They want to party! They want to drink! They want to have a good time! They don’t want to hear anything about the stock market, investments, future. I’m young. I’m alive. I’m now. I want to enjoy life. And that’s basically what we have. Well, anxiety hasn’t fully hit them yet. It’s working on the older folks to the big part. But the younger generation will suddenly be exposed to anxieties beyond their wildest dreams. And they’re going to have to come up with answers and that’s where a lot of us, as older sentinels of strength, are going to have to give them answers by our example and be able to give an answer for the hope that lies within us (1Peter 3:15).
Now in this form of anxiety, it’s characterized by mental agitation and uneasiness, as we mentioned from the definition by Webster. Now in people, it can show up as a mild form or it can show up as a more severe form. One or the other. It strikes in different ways among people. I guess it’s the way the genes and chromosomes are all connected together and how a person’s background, what they’ve been exposed to, have a lot to do with a lot of these elements. But primarily it has to do with people worrying about what’s going to happen to the future. I guess that’s why you’ve got all these people on television now advertising their Terot card readings to tell you the future. You’ve got Sister Suzy who is a spiritual advisor and healer and she’s going to tell you all about this, that and what have you. And so people have tea leaf readings and all this stuff going on. Of course, if they had the answers, they wouldn’t be doing that! They’d be using their information to go and get all the things they are trying to tell you. What they want is for you to believe they have the answer for you so that they can get paid accordingly.
But that’s not what the Bible wants us to do. It doesn’t want us to get involved in that kind of thing. Basically what God wants us to do is to understand He is the one that has given us the clue to the future. We can have peace of mind because He has given us the key of prophesy, the sure word of prophecy, that tells us what to look for as Jesus said, ‘Behold, I’ve told you all these things ahead of time so that when they start to happen you may believe’ (John 14:29). It will strengthen your ability to believe. It will strengthen your faith because faith comes by the hearing of the Word of God and Jesus was the literal, walking, talking Word of God. And when He said these things, when you see these things happen, and He says, ‘understand the parable of the fig tree.’ He says, ‘When you see the fig tree starting to bud and come forth, know that it’s getting close’ (Matt. 24:32-33). He said in the same way, when you start seeing these things happen, know that we are getting close in the time frame. But don’t lock your mind in to worrying about, well, you know, is it coming tomorrow? Is it coming the next day? Will that car that I’ll be driving behind on the freeway suddenly be unmanned because somebody’s going to be ‘beam me up, Scotty’ — you know, with the Rapture. Is that the answer to these things? No! The Bible gives us the clear-cut answer and says you don’t have to be fearful and worrying about things of this nature.
But you must understand what people are going through because you are going to have to help them as you have to overcome anxiety in your own life because we all get subject to it from time to time. Oh, I wish there were some easy way to just wipe it away. But there’s no easy way to do it. We have to live through this world. Remember, Jesus didn’t say, ‘Take them out of the world’ (John 17:15). He said, you’ve got to live in it. Well, if you live in it, you will have tribulation and agitation and things that will — you know, you’ll say, oh boy, I can’t wait for this to get over with. You just don’t like the way the world is going. That’s why God said, pray Thy kingdom come, because God is going to bring about a thousand years, a millennial peace that is going to absolutely blow people’s minds. They are going to see some things that they have never dreamed could ever come to pass. And the scripture addresses itself to that.
But you and I now are being bombarded on a constant basis about this thing of terrorism and that. So, whether anxiety is caused by a real threat or, sometimes, an imagined threat — because people can concoct things with their mind, they can create some threats that are not real, they are imagined. You know, as a child we have this gift of imagination. Go to Disney World down in Orlando and they have a section in there where this one little guy that they’ve got on the thing, his name is called Imagination. And what he does, he takes you through and shows what the power of imagination has done in the course of human history, how men have invented things because of the use of imagination. Well you can also invent things that don’t exist with imagination. And you can invent some things that can be very hurtful to you because you can begin to look around and say, "They’re out to get me." ‘Who’s out to get you?" "I don’t know but they’re there." "Where are they hiding?" "I don’t know, but I know they’re everywhere." And how do you get past that? What do you tell a person, "No, there’s nobody there." "Well, you - you just don’t understand. You don’t grasp because this is real." It’s like a person having a psychosomatic illness in their arm. Let’s say their arm hurts and they say, "Oh, I’ve got this terrible pain." And you’re a doctor and you do an analysis and say, "There’s nothing organically wrong with you." "But Doctor, I feel the pain." Well the truth of the matter is you’d better not tell that person he hasn’t got the pain. He is registering pain. He is registering pain. Why? Because it’s in his mind. There’s nothing organically producing the pain, but the pain is being a form of anxiety in the mind that is creating it. Remember, pain — pain and an apprehensive uneasiness — there’s something wrong.
Today it’s so easy for people, if they’re not careful, to fall into the trap that if everything is not working out 100% right the way they think it should, there must be something wrong with me. And they turn the ‘guns on themselves’ — I like to use that expression — and they start blasting away at themselves, which really is unchristian. You shouldn’t be pushing yourself down, beating yourself down; you should just walk humbly with your God all day long according to the scripture. But it doesn’t please God to see us just beating ourselves down so that we don’t have any confidence of faith to do anything. And yet, people have been beaten down, they’ve been made to feel very, very — like there’s nothing good about them. And these are things that people have had to fight in their individual lives.
Well anxiety, whether real or imagined, gives the feeling of vulnerability. It gives the feeling of inadequacy. Have you ever felt vulnerable? Have you ever felt inadequate? We all do from time to time depending on the circumstances we face. Usually it deals with threats and what spawned this is this comment about the threat of terrorism. I said, man, we’re just being bombarded and all that’s going to do is generate fear, fear, fear. You and I need to realize we’ve got to be generating faith, faith, faith with the spirit of God or we’ll get sucked up into that. Now, it doesn’t mean we blind our eyes to what’s going on out there, but we don’t want to be caught up in the fear syndrome, because fear has torment. And that’s what Satan would like us to be — tormented. And God says, "No, you are my sons and daughters and I want your minds to be at peace." He has given us a mind that is a mind of soundness, not a mind that is all in a state of upheaval.
Well, people become fearful, many times they build anxieties because they worry about social rejection. They get caught up in the social thing. There’s a lot of that today. Political correctness, physical injury, disease, poverty, death itself - a wide variety of things can come into play on this subject that cause anxieties in people’s lives.
Anxiety, basically, can be summarized in three elements that I’d like to share with you this afternoon and that is this: when insecurity, anything that threatens or creates insecurity, a feeling of helplessness or isolation, these three elements mix-matched - individually or however - they create these anxieties that people suffer. And this is one of the reasons why the country singer, Naomi Judd, was told by her daughter, Wynonna, "Mom, you’ve got to stop this." Because when she had this dangerous, terminal case of hepatitis (I believe it was - a type that could not be controlled) she gives God the credit for healing her or putting it in remission. But Wynonna caught her mother beginning to pull away from everybody. Just pulling away — "I don’t want to be around anybody." And she says, "Mom, you can’t do that. You can’t do that. You’ve got to be around us because you’re isolating yourself."
You see, there’s a difference between solitude and isolation. We all need solitude, which means quiet time to think things out, to meditate as the Bible says. But none of us needs isolation. That’s what people do. If you want to take an enemy in a military situation, you take him and you put him in what? You isolate him and you try to break him down through isolation. That’s what Satan would like to do — to break us down as human beings. And so God is telling us plainly that we never want to get into that kind of a situation, when we’re isolated. We need interface. Iron sharpens iron. We need brothers and sisters in the faith. But these combinations, whether they’re imagined or whether they’re real, have a powerful impact on people. And so overcoming these problems is what we want to look at now for the rest of the time.
One very important thing that the Bible addresses about the subject of anxiety is that one must trust God implicitly as far as what He says is the solution to these things. And since we don’t 100% at all times trust God like we should, this is why we get a variable in response. Sometimes we get the type of response we need from God. We get the help we need. Other times we wrestle with things. Why? Because we won’t let the baby go, we won’t let the problem go. We hang on to it when God says to cast it all on Him, let God take care of it. But we don’t let it go because what that does, it gains sympathy from other people. See, can’t you feel sorry for me? I’ve got this problem. Well, everybody’s got problems. Everybody’s got problems. Everybody’s got something that’s working on them. And we’ve got to get rid of these things and cast them into the proper hopper here and that one is in the care of the living God who loves us so very much as we’re going to see. The best way to recognize these things is this: that the Christian man and woman, from a biblical perspective, will feel at times just as insecure as people in the world who don’t even know God, but feel this insecurity. But what does the Bible say the reality is? You may feel — but remember, don’t operate or base your salvation on how you feel. Base it on the reality of God’s Word and what you’re supposed to understand. Because, you see, people used to say, What do you think about this? Now they say, How do you feel about this? They are avoiding the thought process and going to the emotion to get a response that they want to create emotionally, because they know that emotions are a very powerful factor in every human being.
Well, in this particular case as God points out, let’s go to Proverbs chapter 3 please. Proverbs chapter 3 in which Solomon addresses this in his proverbs and in chapter 3 let’s please notice God talking about the importance of His laws, His commands and the wisdom that he offers. Beginning in verse 23 he says,
Prov. 3:23 Then you shall walk in the way safely, and your foot shall not stumble.
Verse 24 When you lie down, you shall not be afraid...
Isn’t that wonderful to lie down and not be afraid? How many people lie down and are afraid every night? He says,
... you shall lie down, and your sleep shall be sweet.
Oh, for a sweet night of sleep! There are a lot of people who can’t even sleep. They have to take Unisom, all kinds of other sleep devices to try to knock themselves out — Tylenol 2 or something of this nature — some type of sleep-inducing medication to get a night’s sleep. Where it says:
Verse 25 Be not afraid of sudden fear...
There you have it again; there’s no reason to allow anxiety, even though there is justification that sudden fears can rise from time to time. He says,
... neither... be afraid ...of the desolation...
Yeah, don’t worry about somebody planning to bomb Baltimore with a nuke. If it happens, it’s going to happen. We can’t stop it, but we don’t have to live our lives in fear of it, is what God is saying. He has called us to something different. He says,
... neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it comes.
Because why?
Verse 26 For the LORD shall be your confidence, and shall keep your foot from being taken.
If your faith and confidence is in trusting God, God says, "Hey, this is My battle. I will fight it for you." But we’ve got to let Him fight for us just like He did back in the days of Jehoshaphat when he was surrounded by an army of all these Arab nations round about back in Judah’s day. And Jehoshaphat cried out to God and he said, "God, look at this. Look how they’re surrounding, look how they’re treating us. Please defend us." And God says, "Jehoshaphat, here’s what you do." And He named the various things they should be doing. They had something to do. But then He said, "But the battle is not yours, it is Mine." And history goes on to show, boy, God just intervened, they had a big falling out among themselves and Jehoshaphat came home with a victory under his belt. That’s because God fought the battle.
Well, in this particular case, again we are reminded that trusting God is very, very important because He is the security that we all need. From time to time, we feel helpless. Have you ever felt helpless in a situation? I’m sure you have. It’s a situation that leaves you just kind of hanging. What do I do? I feel helpless. What do I do? The answer is, you look to God for guidance and help. Let’s notice Romans chapter 8, verse 31. Paul writes about these things. Why does he write about it? Because Paul felt insecure at times. Paul felt helpless at times. But he constantly went back to show where he knew his source of strength and deliverance would come from so that he wasn’t filled with all kinds of anxieties and problems and difficulties — although they would surge from time to time in his life like they would in anyone else’s life. And so, in Romans chapter 8, verse 31 it says,
Rom. 8:31: What shall we say then of these things?... all the things that he had just mentioned. He says ...If God be for us, who can be against us?
You see, who can be against us if God is for us. If God says, "Hey, I state my claim to protect you, to fight for you, to watch over you. Who is out there that is stronger than Me that can take you out of My hand? I will defend you. You are looking to Me." That makes it personal for God. When you look, it says the eyes of the Lord are upon those that fear Him. You cry out to God and you fear God and trust God and say, "God, I feel helpless, I feel my back’s to the wall. Please, fight for me." Do you think He won’t? According to the scripture, it says He will when we feel isolated. When does one feel isolated? Was there ever a time Jesus Christ felt isolated? Take a look at Psalm 23, the 23rd Psalm and notice what we see here. These words are by many scholars definition given as an accredit to Jesus Christ and it makes it very clear that these are some of the thoughts that ran through His mind while He was in a very isolated state of affairs. He was being crucified for the sins of mankind. And notice what it says:
Ps. 23:4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...
Did you notice that? It said ‘I’. It didn’t say ‘we’. It didn’t say ‘us’. He says when that time comes, it’s every man and woman for themselves. Nobody else walks that - those are your footprints in the sand at that moment and He said that
...though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil...
That’s not a fun experience, to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. But there’s no evil to fear. Nothing serious is going to happen in the long run because, again, why?
Because ...you are with me; your rod and your staff comfort me.
Just like a sheep is comforted by the presence of the shepherd with his staff, he looks up every so often and the sheep goes back to eating and sees the shepherd there all the time: that’s the way we look at God. We are His sheep going through life, living our course of action and every so often, you know, when in doubt, look up. Look to God. He’s there. And we’re comforted by His Word right away and it shows us the course of action we should take when we have a momentary lapse in any given area. The remedy for anxiety is complete trust and confidence in God’s ability — not yours and mine — but God’s ability to do what? To take care of our anxieties, like He said. He says, I am the God of all flesh in the book of Jeremiah. Is there anything too hard for me? (Jer. 32:27) I can’t take these anxieties you’ve got and give you peace of mind in exchange if you trust Me? He says, yes I can.
Now how do we gain that kind of trust? Well we have to learn more about God. We have to study to show ourselves approved unto God. The more we understand about God and how He operates and that He’s the lord of the Sabbath and the holy days (as we heard in the sermonette) - these important things that God has shows as a form, a vehicle of worship - then what ends up happening is that God says, "Ah-ha, you are My people because you seek to walk in my righteousness." You see, we have no righteousness of ourselves. That righteousness that is imputed to us is the righteousness of Jesus Christ and it is by God’s grace, unmerited pardon and forgiveness that opens the door and when He brings us to repentance then we say we accept that sacrifice. And that righteousness, then, is what is put into the bank account, so to speak, on behalf of each and everyone of us that shows we’ve got money in the bank called Christ’s righteousness. Without that, we have no righteousness at all except filthy rags that are unacceptable. That’s why it says, except Christ be in you, you are none of His (Rom. 8:9). This is what God the Father is looking for, to see the righteousness of Jesus Christ developed in each and every one of our lives. And that’s a lifetime process so, again, don’t create an anxiety and a frustration if you haven’t gotten to that place overnight. You can’t get to that place overnight. It’s a day by day experience in the growth process. So God’s ability to deal with anything that threatens us is a wonderful reassurance of the scripture.
Now it goes on also and it makes us understand that in Philippians chapter 4, let’s turn there please to the book of Philippians chapter 4 we are told in verse 6:
Phil. 4:6 Be careful for nothing... or be anxious, as some translations put it. Don’t be overanxious or all anxiety-prone over anything ... but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
Talk to God about things, but always tell Him about how much you appreciate the kindness, the things that He has done for you. Let it be known in the context of thankfulness that you come to Him to ask this. And what comes out of this as a by-product?
Verse 7 And the peace of God, which passes all understanding...
This is not something you and I can understand on a human level because this is something God imparts from a spiritual level. But He calms us down. He gives us the ability in our patience to possess our soul when things are looking kind of antsy out there and we get kind of upset and concerned. You know, there are a lot of young people graduating from school right now. I think Ohio State University has 5,500 coming off the assembly line. They got their diplomas, they got their degrees and now they’re antsy about are they going to find a job? The economy is such; they’re looking for jobs. That’s just one college / university. What about all of the others? Where are the jobs for these people? They’re going to have to start dealing with anxieties and wondering whether they are going to get a job or not. So these are the common, every day things that people struggle with. Well, in this particular case we are admonished to look to God because, it says it
Verse 7 ... passes all understanding, and shall keep... notice ...your hearts and your minds through Christ Jesus.
In other words, it tells us in plain language, God will help us control our emotions so that our emotions don’t get out of hand, and He will help control our thoughts so that our minds don’t just run wild. Have you ever had a time when your mind — you couldn’t shut your mind off? You were just thinking about things all the time? Sometimes that happens to people and it’s kind of spooky when your mind just keeps running, won’t shut off. And other times people, as we say, their emotions just run wild. They just get all emotional about things and they can’t calm down. People say, "Calm down, calm down." They can’t do it. And sometimes they have to have a sedative to do it. They have to have, again, professional help because there are many things involved in this. By all means, please don’t take a simplification type approach to this. It’s a very complex thing because of the uniqueness of human beings and all the things that impact on them in their lives. But God has shown us, as His sons and daughters begotten of His spirit, that there is a way that we can overcome and deal with anxieties in a way that God can take it away and it’s gone. It’s gone. And if you leave it there and keep going there every time you run into a problem or difficulty you’ll get good results every time because God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is consistent. He’ll come to your aid constantly. Remember, Jesus said, Lo, I send you into this world. Preach the gospel. Do these things and I am with you always till the end of the age. I’m right there with you. You’re never alone in this calling and this purpose.
All right, let’s do a quick analysis now in the time we have remaining. Let’s take a look at some practical steps we can do because there’s something we have got to do as well. God takes care of the overview, but He wants us to be involved in this as well because we have a part to play. We bring these things, sometimes, on ourselves; we have a part to play to get rid of them with the help of God’s guiding and directing through His word.
The very first thing we have to do is when we get our mind running on different things that cause us to have anxiety we need to go back to the Bible — run to the Bible — don’t run to any other book, don’t go to any other source. Go to the Bible and ask God, What do You say is necessary for dealing with these kinds of things that I am struggling with right now. And you may discover all kinds of things. You may find out that you’re not praying like you should, you’re not meditating like you should, you’re not fasting like you should. You’ll find different things and you’ll say, Why are these things happening? Well, because there are certain things being left undone, just plain and simple, and the Bible reminds you of this. This is why the Devil doesn’t want you to open that book. He wants you to keep it closed because when you open the book, you discover all these things that are helpful to you and warnings that were designed to keep you out of trouble. It’s like Jesus said, I’ve told you these things so that when it happens, you may believe. This is part of how God designed it. The Bible is the very, very important tool.
Romans 15:4 It says, For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning... that’s what God intended it to be preserved for ...that we... notice ...through patience... because He wants us in our patience to possess our souls. He doesn’t want us to get all up in the air over things ...and comfort of the scriptures... what do we derive out of that? It says, that we ...might have hope. We become very hopeful because we know who’s in charge and who’s guiding and directing the affairs in our life and we can go to Him with these kinds of problems and God will hear our cries and He will come to our aid accordingly.
So, the very first and important thing is to make sure we get in the book — read the Bible to find out what does it say what our course of action should be. Well if you go back there in Philippians where we were reading, it says whatsoever is wholesome and good and uplifting — think on these things (Phil. 4:8). Think on those things. Don’t let your mind go wandering off into areas where you shouldn’t be thinking.
All right. Another very important area that needs to be looked at and it has to deal with being realistic — what I call being realistic because we live in an unrealistic world. We have so many, I guess the best way I could put it, we have so many make-believe situations. We live in a make-believe world in many ways. Sometime I’ll give a sermon on that subject. Make-believe is what children play when they are little: let’s make-believe we’re this, let’s play this, let’s play that. When we grow up, we’re supposed to think like adults, not live in a make-believe world. But people are living in a make-believe world today. They’re not being realistic and God wants us to be realistic in our understanding of living life.
Peace of mind does not depend on solving all problems. Please note that because sometimes you get a bunch of problems and you think, well, I’ve got to solve all these problems. And then if you can’t solve something, it drives you up the wall. You get frustrated. Well, there’s a reason for that because some problems can’t be solved in this life. Some problems are going to be solved in the Kingdom of God when Christ returns and the Kingdom of God is established. It’s not in our power to do certain things at certain times. Our job is not to right all wrongs, for example. You know, people get on this ‘crusader mentality’ and they say, well we’re going to clean up this town, we’re going to get rid of all crime. Has crime been gotten rid of? Have all these politicians made it wonderful? They brought in a new administration and we’re not going to have corruption in our administration. We had a President for eight years who told us that. This was one of the most corrupt administrations that has ever existed. So, you know, what are we talking about? Plain and simple that we have to be realistic. That God is telling us that trying to deal with all these different things, it’s not in our power to change everything.
So what I’d like to read to you now is what is called — you might be familiar with it — the Serenity Prayer. You’ve probably seen it printed sometimes on Hallmark cards and different things. Maybe it’s a print you have in the hall at home to remind you — but it’s an excellent one. It goes like this:
God grant me the serenity — that’s the peace of mind, serenity — to accept the things that I cannot change, courage to change the things I can AND the wisdom to know the difference. Boy, that says it all in a nutshell. We’ve got to learn what we can do and what we can’t do and not frustrate ourselves and get all bent out of shape over certain things that we cannot deal with.
A realistic knowledge of our own limitations is very important. I think Clint Eastwood in one of his famous Dirty Harry movies in which he was a law enforcement officer in San Francisco — one of the famous things in one of the movies I think was something like ‘a man’s got to know his limitations’. A man’s got to know his limitations, you know, because it’s like the Peter Principle, a book that was written years ago. People get frustrated because they go higher than where they are comfortable. That’s not where they are happy to be. It’s like a square peg in a round hole and when you push people, that creates all kinds of adversity of thought, complexity of situations and people get very, very unhappy in those situations.
Well, God hasn’t called us to that. He has called us to peace, to be realistic, to understand that there are things we can do and things we cannot do. And what does that do? It causes us to relax and slow down or maybe as people say, take time to smell the roses. Because people are so busy running all the time, they miss all these beautiful roses that are right in front of them for their enjoyment and God wants us to enjoy life. It goes by too quickly, does it not? Don’t we wish we had thousands of years, hundreds of years? Do I have any takers for immortality, eternal life? Oh, yeah! We all want it. God has put eternity in our hearts. This is only just a small jog in the road. The greatest is yet ahead. The best is yet to come in the Kingdom of God. That’s what Jesus lived for and He carried that every day in His life.
There is an art of getting things done and there is an art of leaving certain things undone — that you don’t mess with certain things. And that brings us in 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 7 for an admonition here by Peter.
1 Peter 5:7 in which it says that what we must do is Casting all your care upon Him; for He cares for you.
God makes it very clear in His writings how much He cares for each and every one of us because we are uniquely created by His divine hand for a great purpose to become His divine sons and daughters forever. But we have to respond. We could put it this way: God cannot lead if we will not follow. God cannot lead if we will not follow. But He is our leader. He is our master. And He wants to lead us in the paths of righteousness for His name sake — not because you and I are so great, but for His name sake! For His kindness He wants to bestow upon His children His greatest gift of all — familyhood - to become part of His divine family forever.
So what does that do? That brings us to another very important point that we not only need to read the Bible, be realistic, but we must be flexible. Flexible. This is one of the things that we teach at camp. Our young people, they go to camp and last year, for example, at our Camp Woodmen, we got rained out. We had everything all planned out and the camp director there, Dave Dobson, had this basic rule that he told to all the campers, "Just remember, campers, we’ve got to be flexible." And so as the staff, we organized and we got everything all geared around and we did other things. We weren’t locked in concrete. We didn’t say, "It’s going to be this way or no way." We didn’t frustrate ourselves and the young people didn’t have to go back and say, "Oh, man, we came to camp and we couldn’t do anything because we got rained out." No, we had all kinds of things we did — we just went inside. We executed another plan. Well, we couldn’t have done that if we hadn’t been flexible. So we were teaching young people that they have to be flexible in life, just like you know and I know that a tree — when you see the trees blowing in the wind that as long as the tree is flexible, it will survive the winds. When it stands there and it refuses to bend and the winds are blowing, sooner or later what happens? Pow! She breaks. She snaps. That’s what happens to human beings. They crack. They snap if they do not stay flexible.
So you and I are commanded of the Bible in those principles to stay flexible and that’s what we saw there in Philippians 4, verses 11 and 12. We have to be adjustable, adaptable so that when under stress our faith comes into play. Why is our faith so critical? Because this is how we overcome the world — even our faith — our faith in the God who made us, our faith in the God who can save us, our faith in the God who has done what? Given us the solution how to deal with these elements that drive people crazy who don’t look to God. And there are a lot of crazies out there in the world today doing crazy things. Our police officers, they’ve got their hands full, their backs are to the wall. And then we get these psychologist people coming in trying to say, "We need to figure out why did he do this?" I don’t want to know why he did it. I just want to get him out of there so he never does it again to anybody because it was terrible. Who wants to sit around worrying about how did this demonic mentality do — or why did he do - what he did? My heart goes out to that Smart family out in Utah right now who has got a beautiful young fourteen year old daughter and they are dealing with anxiety like you wouldn’t believe. "What happened to our sweet daughter? Will she ever come back home alive?" Some demented individual got his hands on her and he wanted to exploit her for his ugly, evil reasons — this kind of stuff goes on in the world. That’s why we pray, "Thy kingdom come." Being flexible is a very important key.
Another key ingredient that is helpful in terms of practicality in dealing with these kinds of anxieties: we have to focus on what the Bible calls the good cares of the world, not the bad ones. The good cares. You know, there is a lot of good stuff to care about. There’s a lot of bad stuff out there that you don’t want to care about. You don’t want to get your mind all wrapped up on those things that are hurtful to you. Let’s take a look and notice what the Bible says about the good cares. 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 25. And here the Apostle Paul is talking about the importance of:
1 Cor. 12:25 That there be no schism... or divisions ...in the body... meaning the Church ...but that the members should have... notice ...the same care for one another.
God talks about how we must care for one another as brothers and sisters in Christ because we have all been called to the same thing. As a result, what God wants us to recognize is that we’ve got to really move quickly. We’ve got to move quickly if we’re going to overcome these problems and difficulties. And how do we do it? We overcome by caring for the right things, caring for the needs of others — brothers and sisters in Christ — and not for the cares of the world. Matthew 13:22 talks about how that the Word of God is given. And what happens? It says that it is choked out by the cares of the world, by riches and things of this nature. Those are the bad influences that can impact on a human being. So our minds get distracted — and boy, the adversary has put plenty of distractions out there for us. God does not want us to be all bent out of shape about tomorrow.
Let’s take a look at Matt. 6 and verse 34, which leads to another very important clue in dealing with life and being practical and that is live one day at a time. Live one day at a time and don’t worry about tomorrow. Notice what Jesus said. He says:
Matt. 6:34 Take no thought for tomorrow... doesn’t mean you shouldn’t plan, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t prepare and think about tomorrow, but he says don’t think about tomorrow, again, in terms of what you saw in verse 31:
Verse 31 ... What shall we eat? What shall we drink?... how are we going to ...be clothed?
Don’t get all absorbed in physical things. He says, just live every day to the best of your ability ...for the morrow shall take thought of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
You’re going to see all kinds of problems and difficulties out there. Winston Churchill was said to have made the following statement upon his deathbed: he said his life was filled with trouble. He said that most of it never happened. Most of it never happened. He said his life was filled with trouble, but most of it never happened because he worried about this, worried about that, what’s going to happen here, what’s going to happen there never happened.
Another key important ingredient: stay busy. Stay busy. Older generations used to give little gems of wisdom to the younger generation following and here is one: "Child, get busy. Idleness is the devil’s workshop." In other words, when a person gets anxiety-prone or given to that, they become idle. They don’t produce any longer and you have to produce. You have to stay busy. That’s when you get into trouble, when you just sit around as we say, ‘singing the blues’. And God doesn’t want us singing the blues. He wants us to be busy and productive.
Also, in conjunction with that we have to recognize that many good things are accomplished even in the place of adversity, that you can have a lot of adversity — and every human being goes through elements of adversity — but good things can result from that. For example, using the example on a physical level, World War II, our soldiers hit the beaches in Normandy. Omaha Beach is where the Americans landed. They had one of the most difficult beaches, which they had to surmount and they had to conquer the enemy that was fortified at that time. And they were losing soldiers left and right. Many of the leaders, their leading officers, were being killed, just caught in the crossfire of German machine guns. And what ended up happening? Everyday soldiers took the initiative. They said, "We can’t sit here on this beach. We’ve can’t just lay down here in the sand. They’re going to kill us all if we don’t just do this. We’ve got to do something." What did they do?
They got their satchel charges, they took with sheer guts and courage, they ran up against that machine gun firing, they would fling that satchel charge up and blow up the barbed wire, opening up areas. Still they were being shot, many of them lost their lives, giving their lives to open a way, to open the door. What was the good that was accomplished? They punched a hole through that area and allowed a breakthrough to take place. Once the breakthrough took place, history was changed. Good came out of adversity. It would have been terrible if everybody had been killed on that beach, but they would have been if they had just said well, we're going to die anyway, we might just as well stay here and die. No, we’ve got to do something. We have a chance to change this here if we get busy and do something. And so a goodness came out of it and you and I are here by the grace of God, a recipient of the goodness of those men who gave their lives and their blood on those beaches — and they were bloody beaches — so that we might have freedom. And the God of heaven and earth has been kind enough to grant that freedom down through the period of time and many men who were willing to sacrifice their lives for the dreams and the hopes of our forefathers in this country.
The last area deals with learning contentment like the Apostle Paul said in Phil. 4, verses 11 through 13. He says, whatever state he was in, he says he learned to be content. He said there were times when he was having difficulty - he was abased. There were times when he abounded - there were good times. So, in other words, we have highs and lows in our lives. We all do. And we have to make the best of it and we have to follow the examples then given in the scripture.
In conclusion, I will just use this as a means to say that God has given us the answers to how to deal with anxiety. And anxiety is going to grow on the world scene. You and I are not called to be a partaker of those anxieties. We were called out of this world — even though we must live in it — and He has given us the wherewithal and He says, "If you look to Me, I will fight the battle for you. I will help you. I will show you the route you need to go to deal with it from a spiritual point of view so that you may be an overcomer. And even in the physical areas I’ll show you, basically, how you should dress and keep and work on a day-to-day basis what you need to do so you don’t get trapped in the physical anxieties of life." We have to be overcomers and God has promised to help us in that battle of overcoming.
Well, may your anxieties be few because they are going to grow in this world, but thank God for God who has given us the wonderful help that we need in our time of need.